Other examples of widely used messaging schemas are the EDI (Electronic
Data Interchange) systems which have been used for business messaging
since the 1970s. Most of the world uses UN/EDIFACT, while US businesses
generally use ANSI's X12. Certain industries have their own messaging
systems, such as SWIFT for international banking. These systems have
hundreds of message formats with thousands of distinct codes whose
meanings are context-dependent (which subpart of which type of message).
Software automatically generates and interprets these messages from/for
the businesses' databases. (01)
Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of such messages are transmitted
between companies each business day. So the idea that tools can not
be generated to enable Semantic Web data to be encoded in a set of
standard ontologies, does not seem that far out to me. (02)
The Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), a leading Semantic
Web developer, mapped hundreds of message types from the two largest
EDI systems into ontological terms, assembling the terms into ontologies. (03)
A number of these systems are now being converted by the standards
bodies to XML and RDF encodings. (04)
-- doug foxvog (05)
On Thu, September 9, 2010 12:34, Godfrey Rust said:
> William
>
> Your point is one that has exercised me since the 1990s: but I dont
> believe the dividing line is so drastic. An increasing amount of data is
> managed through common message schemas, which - provided they are
> carefully developed - provide a good standard of controlled vocabulary. In
> the media domains in which I work - music, books, journals, libraries,
> audiovisual with standards - there is a very strong move in this direction
> and a range of established and emerging standards such as ONIX, DDEX and
> RDA, and other domains are further developed than we are. Data of this
> kind is starting to find its way into "linked open data" (using that term
> in a general sense, not specifically in the Semantic Web RDF sense) and I
> expect namespaces other than the basic dc: and foaf: to become commonplace
> and widely used over the next decade. Ontology has a key role in the
> mapping and interoperating of these schemas, and then in reasoning over
> the resulting data.
>
> Of course, we are always at the mercy of those who create the messages to
> use the schemas correctly, and there will always be a non-trivial margin
> of error: but on the whole I think good message standards are the key as
> they deliver reasonable quality data which can be subjected to varying
> degrees of ontological processing. At Rightscom we developed the DDEX
> message standards using an underlying ontology, which for five years
> hardly anyone in the domain has even been aware of. Now there is interest
> in making this ontology explicit and using it as a basis for linked data.
>
> So to my mind ontolog is very much concerned with the use of ontology on
> data that's "out there in web-land" - the key issue is knowing (a) the
> namespaces (and thereby the schemas) of the terms you are processing and
> (b) the provenance of the data. The former seems to be gradually getting
> somewhere; the latter is more challenging.
>
> Godfrey
>
> Godfrey Rust
> Chief Data Architect
> Rightscom/Ontologyx
> Linton House LG01
> 164/180 Union Street, London SE1 0LH
> www.rightscom.com
> Direct +20 8579 8655
> Rightscom Office +20 7620 4433
> Mobile 07967 963674
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Burkett, William [USA]" <burkett_william@xxxxxxx>
> To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 5:03 PM
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] (renamed) Terms with fixed/multiple meanings
>
>
>>
>> John: I understand your point that a "term" in a formal language (e.g.,
>> ontology) should have a single, unique definition - this allows
>> automated processors to (soundly) do something with statements in the
>> language.
>>
>> It is important to point out, however, that this requirement addresses a
>> very small set of users "out there in web-land" - less than 1% I would
>> guess. The "semantic web" will never materialize with this requirement
>> because, simply, a very very large percentage of data-creators don't
>> have the understanding and won't devote the time/rigor required to
>> create these semantically precise statements. Most will create their
>> schemas and ontologies and create their data using their natural
>> language skills/capabilities/facilities - leading to multiple and
>> evolving meanings. So, realistically, except for a very small
>> population, "terms" that are used to name things in web-land *will* have
>> multiple meanings. We can exclude those undisciplined cases and
>> operate in our own small, rigorous, well-defined world - but how useful
>> will that really be? (Like everything in AI, it seems, it'll be useful
>> in special cases, but not in general.)
>>
>> As I write this, it brings the question of scope to my mind: in our
>> discussions here are we ONLY interested in talking about formal
>> ontologies with precisely-defined semantics that can soundly reasoned
>> over, or are we talking about the "semantic web" (or "semantic
>> enterprises") in general where, presumably, we can evolve to a point
>> where processors can do something will all the data "out there in
>> web-land"?
>>
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F.
>> Sowa
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 4:04 PM
>> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Enterprise Architecture -
>> Interoperability?
>>
>> David and Doug,
>>
>> DF>> a Semantic Web needs ontologies of terms with fixed meanings
>>
>> DE> Is this saying that a term (word, phrase, acronym, abbreviation,
>>> whatever) can only have a single meaning?
>>
>> We must always distinguish the names of relations and instances
>> in any formal language from the words in any natural language
>> that is being mapped to that formal language.
>>
>> DF used the word 'term' for the symbols in some formal language.
>> Those symbols should have unique definitions.
>>
>> DE was talking about the words used in some NL that is being
>> mapped to the symbols of some formal language.
>>
>> The names used in the formalism should never be identified
>> with the words in the NL -- even when their spelling happens
>> to be similar.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
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doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org (07)
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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